At the interface between the EU and NATO, the Multinational Joint Headquarters Ulm (MN JHQ Ulm) provides a military-strategic headquarters for operations and exercises. With its planning capacities, capabilities and expertise, it strengthens the EU’s capacity to act and respond to crisis scenarios.
The MN JHQ Ulm is capable of assuming command and control of an EU mission at the military-strategic level, even at short notice. This does not only include the provision of headquarters and planning capacities, but also the necessary infrastructure as well as IT and CIS support elements. Moreover, the MN JHQ Ulm can act as a “Joint Logistics Support Group Headquarters”, and provide – down to the tactical level – mobile logistic capacities in support of task forces.
The MN JHQ Ulm provides EU member countries with all these capabilities in the context of the European Union’s Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP). In view of the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine and calls by the U.S. administration for Europe to become more self-sufficient in terms of security policy, the MN JHQ Ulm serves as a building block to strengthen Europe’s efforts to better provide for its own security. In March 2025, the High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Kaja Kallas, summed up this European ambition as follows:
Prepare for the worst to defend peace in Europe.
With this is mind, the MN JHQ Ulm is becoming more important, as it provides crucial military capabilities that are necessary to ensure Europe’s “coming of age” in security terms.
Ensuring cooperation with JSEC, the NATO command based in Ulm, is an ongoing MN JHQ Ulm task. The MN JHQ Ulm provides headquarters and planning capacities to ensure the efficiency and effectiveness of support forces in multinational missions. In the past, it has provided support for the NATO Response Force and NATO’s Very High Readiness Joint Task Force (VJTF). In the future, it will also provide support to the Allied Reaction Force (ARF), which was established in June 2024, and, on a permanent basis, to JSEC.
The MN JHQ Ulm has developed a unique wealth of expertise in exercising command and control of joint and combined EU and NATO operations and exercises. Its certification as a NATO Joint Task Force Headquarters in 2018 was an important milestone in this development. At present, servicemen and women from eight countries are serving at the MN JHQ Ulm, making it a unique asset in the Bundeswehr while furthering the Bundeswehr’s integration into NATO and the EU.
In an emergency, the MN JHQ Ulm will be responsible for coordinating forces from different nations
Bundeswehr/Sebastian WilkeThe Commander of the MN JHQ Ulm, Lieutenant General Kai Rohrschneider, exercises command and control over military personnel from Germany, Austria, the Czech Republic, Romania, Luxembourg, Finland and Hungary, among other countries. With its planning capabilities, training and exercise capacities and military intelligence capabilities, the Operations Directorate is at the heart of the MN JHQ Ulm. This extensive remit enables the MN JHQ Ulm to flexibly respond to different operational scenarios and to optimise cooperation between the countries involved, which is crucial for the successful conduct of multinational missions.